Ninjas in Pyjamas is a Swedish eSports organization which was founded in 2000. The team competed in Counter-Strike 1.6 until their dissolution in 2007. In 2012, the team returned with a now heavily renowned Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squad.

In June 2000, Tommy "Potti" Ingemarsson and Tootzi founded NiP as a LAN-based clan. Over time, more players joined and NiP begin making their mark on the Swedish Counter-Strike scene. Several wins in online and minor offline competitions and leagues ensured their reputation as the top Swedish clan. The early NiP clan changed several names at times and played in multitude of offline LANs. Their first notable LAN event was at CPL Cologne in December, placing a respectable 4th despite having some players unable to attend and needing several replacements. After winning major Babbages CPL tournament in Dallas, Texas, several players left and new players joined afterwards, most notably, Emil "Heaton" Christensen and Jørgen "XeqtR" Johannessen. A sudden split of the team that spread the top NiP players across two rival teams followed. The two rival teams faced each other in Amsterdam for CPL Holland 2001, where both teams reached the finals of the tournament. After the event, a new NiP was formed consisting of HeatoN, Potti, MedioN, Hyb and XeqtR. Soon after XeqtR was kicked and Micheal "ahl" Korduner plus Vesslan were picked up. After they won CPL World Championships, XeqtR, rejoined the team. NiP had a short-lived 7-man lineup, as Vesslan was soon kicked, followed by MedioN retiring and Hyb going inactive. With their new 5th ScreaM and 6th Dracula, NiP would win two more events before the final Birdie LAN in which afterwards, several players left and HeatoN, Potti and XeqtR went to join SK Gaming, thus ending NiP.

Contract disputes in SK Gaming lead to the entire line up of the team leaving. Potti then reformed NiP at the start of 2005 along with HeatoN, Hyper, ahl, SpawN and fisker. NiP had their first tournament since reforming, but placing only 3rd at CPL Barcelona. Potti then returned to the main lineup. Soon after several players went back to SK, leaving the current line up at the time to be Potti, HeatoN, walle, zet and ins. Eventually, Potti and HeatoN started to become inactive, being subbed by SpawN and RobbaN. NiP went on to play a few more tournaments, placing 2nd against Polish team Pentagram before the team finally disbanded again.

Rumors went around as to who the next player would be and after much speculation, NiP released a day by day reveal of their new 2016 roster. Following the reveal, NiP would continue to field 4 of their players with the new NiP 5th revealed as Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi. Adding on to supplement the roster, Björn "THREAT" Pers was announced to be their new coach on the 1st of January. Their first tournament with Jacob "pyth" Mourujärv would be an online one, the Global eSports Cup Season 1 where they would make it out of groups before falling 2-0 to Ex-Titan and not qualifying for the offline event. The first offline event NiP would then attend with pyth would be IEM Katowice 2016. Despite wins over The MongolZ and more significantly Luminosity, NiP were unable to proceed to the playoffs due to losses against Mousesports, Fnatic and Natus Vincere exiting the groups in 4th/5th with a 2-3 record.

Despite the poor showing at IEM, NiP would start to focus on preparation for the next Major, MLG Columbus 2016. However a large setback would put NiP on the backfoot, that being Jacob "pyth" Mourujärv's inability to attend the event due to visa issues. NiP's group consisted of Luminosity, Mousesports and FlipSid3 Tactics. The first game versus FlipSid3 Tactics would see a shaky start, however in overtime NiP would take the map 19-17. Luminosity was their next opponent and promptly shut down NiP 16-5. To proceed to playoffs and ensure their Legend status, NiP would need to win a best of three against Mousesports which they did 2-1 to then meet Natus Vincere in the Quarterfinals. Natus Vincere handed NiP a 2-0 loss, knocking them out of the Major. 2 weeks later, NiP would then attend another offline event, DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016 where they would be placed in a group consisting of Team Dignitas, Astralis and Lounge Gaming. A significant loss to Team Dignitas 2-16 saw NiP needing to play Lounge Gaming where they won 16-8 and then had to face Astralis. NiP would proceed to win 2-1 and make it to the playoffs bracket. Significant wins over Virtus.pro and GODSENT would see NiP in the grand finals against the team that knocked them out at the previous tournament, Natus Vincere. This would not deter NiP as they took the win with a 2-0 to obtain their first LAN championship in 2016.

Since the introduction of NiP's new 5th, NiP has been continuously playing in the ESL Pro League Season 3 where they ended the season in first place with an impressive 19-3 record, qualifying them for the ESL Pro League Season 3 Finals. This would be the next offline event NiP would attend. After getting out of groups in first with key wins over Team Liquid and Fnatic, NiP would again face Luminosity in the semifinals where they would lose 2-1 and finish in 3rd/4th.

ELEAGUE Season 1 Group Stage would be NiP's next endeavour, requiring them to attend their group matches offline in the Turner Studios at Atlanta, USA. The format of ELEAGUE is similar to that of the GSL groups where 2 wins are needed to progress, however instead of a best of one, all games were best of three and in the Round-Robin format. NiP would win 2-0 over OpTic Gaming and then proceed to lose to G2 Esports requiring them to win one more set in order to qualify for playoffs. NiP's final set would be against Selfless Gaming where they would win 2-0 to proceed to playoffs. Due to the nature of the groups, NiP would have time to attend several offline events, the first being Dreamhack Summer 2016 where wins over Epsilon eSports in the first game and group elimination set allowed NiP to contest in the playoffs against Astralis. A 2-1 win saw NiP proceed to the grandfinals where they fell to Immortals 2-0. NiP would then attend the ECS Season 1 Finals after being able to qualify via the ECS Season 1 Europe League. They will not perform well, losing games to Luminosity and a best of three to G2 Esports to be eliminated in the group stages.

NiP would then announce that Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi would be replaced by Mikail “Maikelele” Bill a previous stand in with NiP due to the former sustaining a wrist injury. They would then compete in the StarLadder StarSeries Season 2 where wins in the groups against HellRaisers and GODSENT saw them face off Astralis in the quarterfinals. NiP would play well and take the series 2-1 before continuing their run against Cloud9 2-0 in the semifinals and G2 Esports 2-0 in the grand finals to win their second offline event in 2016.

NiP would be unable to maintain their form as they head into EPICENTER 2016 with stand in Mikail “Maikelele” Bill. Unable to obtain more rounds than Natus Vincere, G2 Esports and Team Dignitas despite having a 4 way tie in map score, NiP would be eliminated from the event in last place. Meanwhile, NiP had also been participating in the ESL Pro league Season 4 Europe online league. Similar to the previous season, NiP would finish strong, tied with Fnatic with a 19-7 score in maps and thus qualifying for ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals. NiP would finish with a decent result, after scraping through groups with wins over SK Gaming, NRG eSports and FaZe Clan. Another win over Team EnVyUs 2-0 will see then obtain 3rd/4th after then losing to SK Gaming in the semifinals. 2 weeks later, NiP would attend IEM Oakland with Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi back from his injury, where they would be able to make it to playoffs with wins in the group stages against Mousesports, Cloud9 and Heroic. They would then face Immortals in the quarterfinals and beat them 2-0 to reach the semifinals. In the semifinals, NiP would take a 2-1 win against FaZe Clan before getting revenge against SK Gaming by beating them 2-1, taking their third and final offline tournament win of 2016.

ELEAGUE Season 2 would be NiP's next offline event. Having finished Season 1 in the top 8, NiP would qualify and be placed into the main offline event in group B along with Virtus.pro, G2 Esports and Echo Fox. Despite a loss to Virtus.pro, NiP made it to the playoffs with wins against G2 Esports 16-5 and later 2-0. However, their run would be cut short as Astralis would eliminate them 2-1.

Following ELEAGUE Season 2, the ELEAGUE 2017 Major Qualifier would be the final event of 2016 for NiP and an important one, as previously they had lost their Major spot at ESL One: Cologne 2016. NiP had to obtain top 8 at this event in order to qualify for ELEAGUE Major 2017. In round 1, NiP would enter the Round 2 high seed match after winning 16-9 against Renegades. In the round 2 high match, NiP would lose against HellRaisers forcing them to face OpTic Gaming in the round 3 low match. There they would lose significantly, 9-16 and be on the brink of elimination where they needed to win the round 4 low match in order to stave off exiting the major qualifiers. However, in a shocking upset, NiP would lose 2-16 to CIS Minor qualified team Vega Squadron. This loss meant that NiP would not attend a Major, breaking their streak of attending every Major thus far. NiP would continue their streak of less than expected results with a 5th-8th in Dreamhack Masters Las Vegas 2017 which was the first tournament of 2017, followed by a 9th-10th place in IEM Katowice 2017.

Following the string of abysmal results, NiP made a monumental roster change, benching Adam "friberg" Friberg - one of their longest-standing core members - and adding Fredrik "REZ" Sterner to complete their roster.

The End of the Longest-Standing Core in CS:GO (2018 January - Present)[edit]

NiP began the year with cs_summit 2 as their first LAN, having missed ELEAGUE Major: Boston due to failing to qualify in 2017. However, the event turned out to be a great disappointment for the Ninjas, as they were taken down 2-1 by Team Liquid in the upper-bracket before being eliminated in last place by Heroic, also with a 2-1 score. This result prompted NiP to bench Xizt and to make way for Dennis "dennis" Edman, and therefore ending the run of the longest standing core in the game, leaving only f0rest and GeT_RiGhT from the original NiP roster.

The decision of benching draken was taken in June. Thanks to an interview from Fredrik "REZ" Sterner for HLTV.org in StarSeries i-League Season 5, we have learned that the team coach pita asked draken to become a support player/AWPer. REZ clarified eariler that NiP had a lot more freedom in the game, giving him and draken the main roles. REZ mentioned that they could have solved a lot of problems by achieving that. But probably because draken couldn’t adapt to the new system, giving up after a few tries, or he just refused to accept the rules, he left the team to deal with problems all by themselves. After Fnatic benched Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson and replaced him with ex-NiP player Xizt, NiP took the chance and got Lekr0. After replacing a primary AWPer with a rifler, NiP are transforming into what people would call "Liquid 2.0". A team without a player who specializes in AWPing. However, there is almost no sense in this discussion, as the intrigue was stopped by pita who published an AWP-highlight from dennis on his Twitter.

They also had a strong rivalry with Fnatic, previously first appearing when they played under Epsilon Esports.

NiP are noted for their humor at times such as crabwalking with Dual Elites in an official match, buying negevs and recently their "military style" communication during the warm-up phase of a match.

NiP at times have unexpected tournament runs and wins over opponents that under normal circumstances they would lose to, such runs have been coined by the analyst Duncan "Thorin" Shields and later collectively adopted by the community as "NiP Magic."

NiP are the first team in CS:GO to win a large tournament with a stand in (with Maikelele at SL i-League StarSeries Season 2). SK Gaming later overtook prize money won from winning an event with a stand-in, with boltz at EPICENTER 2017 - winning $120,000 more than NiP did from their tournament win.